What are you working on today?

Thanks man. Also allegedly these motors are well known for oil consumption, so the really scary version is that it's been burning oil but "refilling" the crankcase with gas. But of course I have no proof it's been burning oil.

I did pull a sample and will send off for UOA

Oh, and she got the vehicle from Carvana with about 50k freedom. Now at 61k. But I gotta wonder if it hit the used market and got effectively laundered through Carvana because someone knew something was going south. Maybe not, but I'd never buy a boutique badge from Carvana or Carmax etc
That is scary! I have read some horror stories about Carvana lately.
 
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Reman caliper lasted all of 30 miles before getting stuck 🙄 Luckily I kept the old caliper (which didn't look terribly old), so back on it went. The pads and rotor got a bit hot, but hopefully they're salvageable. Score one for no core charges, at least.
 
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Replaced the belt and the idler pulley above the ac compressor on my 08 4.2 Trailblazer today, the idler was a Dayco I purchased about 6 years ago at Advance Auto for some reason I thought it had a china bearing on it when I took it off an regressed it last summer when it first started making noise, but tuens out it was an NTN Canada, I replaced it with a new old stock one I found on eBay with an NTN Canada bearing on it. I was using an OEM GM/Bando belt before don't know the age was on the car when I got it, and for the last little bit I put that shorter Continental made in Germany belt on there to bypass the AC and idler so I could stop annoying my neighbors when I get up to go to work at 5AM, I only have that belt because the previous owner had it in the car when I bought it and they thought the AC compressor was making noise when it was really the idler. Seems quiet thus far, if it comes back then it's probably the ac clutch bearing, in that case I guess I'll just go back to the short belt and live without AC. The Tensioner should be fine I think the tensioner itself is a litens like almost all of them for this car since it's a one off just about every aftermarket tensioner is a rebranded litens made in Canada tensioner, although I did swap the plastic idler on it last year for a metal one I had put on my OEM tensioner 6 years ago that was only on for like 3 months before I replaced the tensioner.
 
@zhaarnak02 bingo!!!!!! You win a toaster!!

Ok crew, after some more reading, seems these new fangled Jeeps will throw random abs, esc and brake codes after a service.

I'll note a few observations that I did not add prior as I did not have context. When bleeding the system, I had the master cylinder cap off, started a gravity bleed which was flowing nice. I went and pumped the brakes slowly, which had weird pedal feel. It did not work as no extra fluid came out. I continued to gravity bleed successfully.

On test drive, I said the abs was functioning, well there was the telltale pulsing. This was on our dirt driveway. What I see now is the brakes were very weak, feeling as if only the backs were working.

Upon reading into this, these faults "may" clear themselves or I may need the dealer to do some sort of reset. Great.
Hmmmm, I wonder if the toaster one of those fancy ones that will do 4 slices and a bagel?
 
The '20 Land Rover Defender returned due to a knocking noise. I had briefly noticed this on my test drive after brake work yesterday but it seemed to subside and I don't like looking for problems -- especially on a Land Rover!!

Anyway, I HAD checked the oil yesterday while I had the hood up, and I thought it looked "weird" ....but somehow the oil level seemed ok and I left well-enough alone. I'll often check oil on customers' vehicles if I have the hood open because we know so few people monitor this.

For the Land Rover I was afraid of timing chains as they're apparently infamous, even on the new Ingenium engines. However I was able to find no noise at the rear of the engine where the timing chains live :rolleyes:

The noise seems to be primarily from the valve cover. I smelled the oil -- smells like gas :( This would also explain why I thought the oil looked "weird"

I said the first thing we should just TRY is an oil change. Got about 12.5 qts from a 9.3 qt sump! Yikes! Was there three quarts of gasoline in there??

The owner couldn't seem to pin down when the last oil change was. Apparently LR recos intervals of 15-20k miles, which we all know is dumb. This one may have been 11k ago. Maybe. But she can't be sure.

Refilled with 5W30 rather than 0W20 and the noise seems a little better, but still there.

I kicked it out the door because the owner actually uses a second shop which may be willing to open up the top end of a Rover motor. Seems like a potential can of worms to me. Can you even get individual lifters or camshafts for these? Can you even get a complete head in a reasonable time?

@GMBoy do you have any experience with oil dilution on the 2.0/3.0 gassers in this newer platform? Apparently the 3.0 diesel is notorious, but that's not this.

@RooflessVW
I have to say that I would much rather work on a Trabant than a Land Rover.................................
 
I was in the shop by 4:00am today, finished a brake job on a semi trailer, I began yesterday. Then put 12 new tires on it, greased it, replaced a burnt out marker light bulb, and then came inside, made grandma and I breakfast.
 
Adding an inter cooler upgrade today. Not a bad job in all with the usual VW “service position” lol.
Unitronic inter cooler is twice as thick and heavy as the stock one so a little dremel action was needed to box it back up between the radiator and a/c condenser. An unbelievable amount of pollen, bugs and dust had accumulated on the radiator which stunned me as the car isn’t even to 15k miles yet but I took the time to vacuum it and the condenser really well “while I was in there”.
On a sad note Unitronic had a brain fart and sent my son the Mk7 version of charge pipes which while the cold side would fit the bung hole for the air temp sensor was too small and the hot side would have fit had the gen 4 engine in the Mk8 not had a large T of hard plastic coolant lines barely a half inch in the way. So the stock charge pipes went back in and to be honest they are not much bigger diameter size anyways so the stock may stay and I’ll send the wrong ones back with a little piece of my mind.
FYI apparently an engineering degree is required to put the headlights back on lol. Honestly the hardest part of the job.
My new Milwaukee Insider power ratchet paid for itself. Zipping in and out 500 T25, 50 T30 and all the hose clamp bands made the job much easier. The only other socket needed for the whole job was a 16mm socket to take the crash bar off. Pretty amazing.
Photo during tear down. Shout out to HPL for having the perfect height five gallon buckets to hold the stack at the perfect height lol.
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Tried a battery reset on the Grand Cherokee L. No change on the ESC error code. I went to remove the 10mm nut holding the secondary battery terminal off, well the thing was finger tight, with the cross over cable having little contact.

Anyway, the thing is booked in tomorrow morning and will deal with it then.

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My "serpentine belt and tensioner" job turned into a $550 belts/water pump/radiator hoses job on my BMW diesel. I am glad to report that it's put back together and runs fine.

One thing I didn't do was for the air conditioner belt, which is a "stretch belt." This is something new to me. I didn't buy the tool and now I appear to be looking like a dummy. Anyone have any tricks to getting a stretch belt on when there's no tensioner or any way to adjust any of the pulleys? This is the special tool that was recommended: https://www.ebay.com/itm/406067662866
 
Finally finished the transmission rebuild. Waited on a few small parts to come in for it. Now with the transmission done, on to the power steering pump. First time doing a power steering pump, so far super simple compared to the transmission.
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Intercooler update. Got it all back together and spawned a CEL for airbag because out of all the dozen or so connectors I had to plug back in I forgot the easy one into the back of the VW badge on the front grill. Plugged it in and cleared the code and washed it Im putting it back in the garage till next weekend lol.

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Valvoline Restore and Protect no. 2 OCI, 2007 RAV4 2AZ engine. I dropped the drain plug into the funnel. It was a perfect fit, it plugged the outlet and overflowed making a big mess.
Darn It! One of the articles on your paper was really getting interesting and I cant read part of it due to the oil stain!
 
Finally finished the transmission rebuild. Waited on a few small parts to come in for it. Now with the transmission done, on to the power steering pump. First time doing a power steering pump, so far super simple compared to the transmission.

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I love Saginaw pumps! Reliable and ever so easy to rebuild (once you get the cover off anyways)if something does go wrong.
 
Intercooler update. Got it all back together and spawned a CEL for airbag because out of all the dozen or so connectors I had to plug back in I forgot the easy one into the back of the VW badge on the front grill. Plugged it in and cleared the code and washed it Im putting it back in the garage till next weekend lol.

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I am feeling your German car pain. I didn't have to take off the front bumper but I did have to take apart half the engine to do what started out as a simple belt and tensioner. I thought I would have to take the bumper off so I could take the intercooler off just so I could get the intercooler hose back on, but after about two hours fighting it I was able to contort myself in an especially painful way and got it back on!
 
Anyone have any tricks to getting a stretch belt on when there's no tensioner or any way to adjust any of the pulleys? This is the special tool that was recommended: https://www.ebay.com/itm/406067662866
When I did a p/s belt on a transverse Ford 3.5 I had both styles of tool but wound up using zip ties. This will likely only work if you have a pulley with holes. Plenty of vids on YT with examples.

Also if you can get it kinda started, it'll feed on with the starter, like shifting to the big ring on a bike. Or, at least....theoretically ;) If it's an expensive belt, probably best not to chance this :D
 
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